Crime and Punishment

Ivanovna, I think it is? Allow me to pass.”

Pyotr Petrovitch, edging by her, went to the opposite corner where Sonia
was.

Katerina Ivanovna remained standing where she was, as though
thunderstruck. She could not understand how Pyotr Petrovitch could deny
having enjoyed her father’s hospitality. Though she had invented it
herself, she believed in it firmly by this time. She was struck too
by the businesslike, dry and even contemptuous menacing tone of Pyotr
Petrovitch. All the clamour gradually died away at his entrance. Not
only was this “serious business man” strikingly incongruous with the
rest of the party, but it was evident, too, that he had come upon some
matter of consequence, that some exceptional cause must have brought him
and that therefore something was going to happen. Raskolnikov, standing
beside Sonia, moved aside to let him pass; Pyotr Petrovitch did not
seem to notice him. A minute later Lebeziatnikov, too, appeared in the
doorway; he did not come in, but stood still, listening with marked
interest, almost wonder, and seemed for a time perplexed.

“Excuse me for possibly interrupting you, but it’s a matter of
some importance,” Pyotr Petrovitch observed, addressing the company